Archive for September, 2011...

Freddie Mac recently reported that mortgage interest rates last week were the lowest since they started tracking rates in the 1970’s. While rates raised a bit again this week there is speculation that the all time lows could be tested again in October in response to the Fed buying mortgage backed securities starting in October.

Contact us in the sidebar to learn more about the government-backed refinance programs that are available.

The Fed announced a new plan today that will likely compress mortgage interest rates even further. Here is an excerpt from a HousingWire piece on the subject:

The committee also said “to help support conditions in mortgage markets” it will reinvest principal payments from agency debt into agency mortgage-backed securities.

That’s a departure from the Federal Reserve’s previous practice of reinvesting those proceeds into Treasuries and appears to be an effort to lower mortgage rates.

The purchase program, to be completed by the end of June, will involve longer-term Treasury securities with remaining maturities of six years to 30 years, and will be financed through the sale of shorter-term Treasuries with maturities of three years or less.

“This program should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and help make broader financial conditions more accommodative,” the FOMC said in a statement following its two-day meeting.

Contact us in the sidebar to learn about which programs could help your family.

More than a week after President Obama announced in a speech before congress that he wanted to make it easier for American home owners to take advantage of the record low interest rates we are seeing on mortgages now there have yet to be any concrete policy changes. Rumors are that the changes will be to the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) with the goal of making it easier for many more home owners to qualify for that program. We’ll keep you post on news as it breaks.

In the meantime, contact us in the sidebar to learn more about the government-backed refinance programs you might already qualify for.

As expected, part of President Obama’s recently revealed jobs plan was a plan to make it easier for more Americans to refinance their mortgages to the historically low interest rates we have been seeing in the last month or so. The president outlined his plan last night and it looks like main idea is to make it easier to qualify for the already existing Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). Here are some quotes from a Reuters article on the topic:

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he is seeking to broaden U.S. homeowners’ access to mortgage refinancing in a plan to help the ailing housing market and put money back in the pockets of borrowers needing help locking into record low rates.

“We’re going to work with Federal housing agencies to help more people refinance their mortgages at interest rates that are now near 4 percent,” …

The White House officials said the U.S. Treasury was having talks with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their regulator — the Federal Housing Finance Agency — on ways to broaden refinancings. The aim is to is to “remove the barriers that exist in the current refinancing program.” …

The refinancing initiative under consideration by the Obama administration would need final approval from the acting head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Edward DeMarco. Those close to DeMarco say he is acting as an independent regulator with the goal of conserving the assets at Fannie and Freddie, a position he has staunchly defended before lawmakers since the two firms were taken over by the government three years ago.

The encouraging news is that the Obama Administration does not appear to need the approval of the Republican-led congress to make access to the HARP program easier. Rather the administration mostly needs to persuade the independent head of the FHFA Edward Demarco that their plan is sound.

We’ll keep you posted on the progress of this new initiative. In the meantime, contact us in the sidebar to see which government-backed refinance programs you already qualify for.

As investors all over the world become increasingly nervous about world economic conditions more and more are buying up US treasury bonds as a safe haven for their money. That in turn is reducing the yield on US treasury bonds which in turn has continued to compress mortgage interest rates. The end result is that rates on government-backed mortgages are at astonishingly low rates this month.

Contact us in the sidebar to learn more details on the programs and rates connected with government-backed refinances. Dips in interest rates this steep normally don’t hold for long.

There has been a lot of speculation that President Obama will include a new mortgage assistance program as part of his speech this evening. We get this from a recent MarketWatch article:

President Barack Obama may suggest changes to a struggling housing refinance program to try to double the participation in the program and help kick start the economy in his speech before Congress on Thursday night, regulatory analysts said. …

The Federal House Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, may be considering a number of approaches to expand the participation of both lenders and so-called “underwater” borrowers of Fannie and Freddie-backed mortgages who owe more than their homes are worth. However, regulatory observes insist that all these approaches increase costs to taxpayers and damages mortgage investor confidence.

Of course whatever he pitches probably won’t make it past congress so on the ground level it likely won’t make much immediate impact. But it will be interesting to see what the plans are anyway.

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